The United States was the first major power to adopt a semi-automatic service rifle during World War II, the M1 Garand. While most World War II infantrymen had to pull back a heavy bolt after each shot of their bolt-action rifles, a G.I. could expend a Garand’s clip as... Read more

On Dec. 22, 2017 the State Department announced it had issued an export license for lethal military aid to Ukraine — including $47 million for 210 Javelin missiles and 35 shoulder-mounted command launcher units, or CLUs, with which to launch them. The decision has been welcomed by Kiev and elicited... Read more

Seventy years after World War II ended, Japan and Russia are still trying to sign a peace treaty. The persistent bone of contention? The Kuril Islands, seized by Soviet troops in a bloody amphibious landing after Japan announced it was ready to surrender. But how and why did the Soviets seize the Kurils... Read more

By the summer of 1944, the German Luftwaffe had a lot of problems. Huge Allied four-engine strategic bombers were pummeling Germany’s industrial base daily, escorted by long-range fighters that were frittering away the German flying arm’s elite cadres of combat pilots nurtured since the 1930s. While the bombing campaign... Read more

It’s said history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. In the late 14th century, Korea’s ruling Joseon dynasty began an all-out espionage campaign to acquire classified missile technology from neighboring China. At the time, stateless wokou “dwarf pirates”—so called because of their comparatively shorter stature—were ravaging the Korean... Read more

On Oct. 15, 2017, the submarine U-35 was performing a diving maneuver off the Norwegian coast when one of the four fins on its X-shaped rudder struck a rock. The damage was severe enough she needed to be escorted back to Kiel by the testing ship Helmsand. The 56-meter-long submarine would have... Read more

Germany is generally credited with developing the first assault rifle with the MP-43, which entered service with select units towards the end of 1943. Later renamed the Sturmgewehr 44 — literally “assault rifle 44” — this used an intermediate-strength kurz cartridge that balanced the long-range accuracy of heavy, slow-firing bolt-action rifles... Read more

The PPsH-41 submachine gun undoubtedly reigns as an icon of the Soviet war machine in World War II, immortalized in combat photographs and in films such as Cross of Iron and The Tin Drum. Like the T-34 tank and the Il-2 Shturmovik attack plane, the “Pepsha” or “Papasha” (“Daddy”) was not only a... Read more

No one really expects spies to live glamorous James Bond-lifestyles full of tailored suits, tight dresses, sex and gambling. So, one of the pleasures of reading Ben Macintyre’s Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies is learning about a half-dozen outrageous secret agents who really did lead... Read more